welsh hills again

 In 2019, at the tender age of sixty four, I did the Couch to 5K programme, a running programme on an app designed to take you from no running at all (i.e. the couch!) to running for 30 minutes without stopping.  I think the 5k is a bit of a misnomer as very few people who go through the programme end up running 5k in the 30 minutes at which the programme aims. I had never been a runner, never been sporty at all.  At school I specialised in sloping off from all sporting activity and sitting in the sun by the tennis courts with a book, joining in at the last minute by apparently returning from the toilets.  As an adult I learned that I loved walking and yoga or Pilates.  It was apparently ball sports or organised games that I didn't like.  I did actually enjoy physical activity if it was the right physical activity.   I only started couch to 5k because Ian was doing it, having committed himself, after a glass or two of wine, to running a half marat...

I have always loved Spring and here we are in February.  There are tiny signs of spring.  In the bottom of the hedges along the lanes snowdrops are showing.  Last week we visited a churchyard at Llantysilio, about half an hour from here, which is famous for its snowdrops.  We went on a Sunday afternoon, thinking the church would not be in use then, but as we wandered among the gravestones we could hear the sounds of singing and an organ playing.  Under the lych gate at the entrance to the churchyard was a notice indicating the there was a service that day to bless the snowdrops.  It was a strange idea, almost pagan.  I am not aware of any Christian significance in snowdrops other than perhaps that they could be said to be an indication of new life to come. Because I love spring so much and have never been keen on February I am making a particular effort right now not to wish the days away.  I used to do this a lot, longing for sunshine and longer ...

 Yesterday we went to the funeral of a very old friend, the first of our generation to die.  This is not the place to write about the day, that is his story and that of his family.  It may be the place to write about the effect of being brought up once again against the finality of death.  How many times has that happened?  How many funerals have I attended over my own reasonably long life?  And yet the mind skitters away and refuses to engage with the hugeness and the inevitability of death.  When I was younger I, like most people I imagine, simply could not feel in any way that death would apply to me.  Of course I knew it would with my intellect but somehow it was impossible to take seriously as my own future.  I could see the sadness and loss of those who were left behind.  I could mourn my own loss.  I could think about the wife or husband, the children and grandchildren who remained and how their lives might be without the per...

Years, galloping.  In a swish of a tail, barely caught out of the corner of my eye, 2024 has gone and is racing away, over the hill, over the headland, over the sea.  Is this what the blogging is for?  To try to hold onto it?  Who knows.  Photos help. January Bright and cold, so unlike the grey dampness of the end of this year.  In January 2024 I hit the fifth anniversary of starting to run, using the Couch to 5k app.  Mostly I don't stop when I run, as I do very slowly, in case I find I can't start again.  This is a view across the fields to the Clwydian Hills.  It is part of my regular, short round of about 3k and I must have stopped to take it because of the blue of the sky.  I never stop feeling lucky to live here in this little known part of North East Wales.  It is very beautiful and very empty.  Very slowly plans are moving to  make this, now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, into a new National Park.  I a...

Christmas in my childhood was the classic 1960s British version.  My brother and I were up very early.  On Christmas night  I was permitted to have the travelling alarm clock in my bedroom.  It unfolded from a bright red leatherette box about two inches square, had a luminous golden face and I thought it was entirely beautiful.  Six o' clock was allowed.  Five o'clock was not.   My younger brother and I shared a room.  I would usually wake first and lie there watching the illuminated dial.  At about 5.15 would come a stirring from the other bed as Paul felt his way down in the dark.  "Liz, Liz.  He's been.  He's been.  I can feel it."  The torch would come out from under my pillow.  It was just a stocking on the bed, one of my Dad's walking socks.  Big presents were under the tree and we had to wait until our parents were up to go downstairs but we could open the stockings.  There would be a tanger...

I look out this morning to the sun on the hills.  For years my view of these hills was from the other side, the East.  The hills are the Clwydian Range, running from Llangollen in the South up to the sea on the North coast of Wales.  Clwyd (pronounced Cloo-id) means gate in Welsh and the range is the natural gateway between England and Wales, although for many centuries Wales has included Flintshire, to the East of the range as well.  The hills are topped by a number of Bronze and Iron Age hillforts so my sense of them as a geographical barrier between England and Wales is perhaps an ancient one.  Certainly these days and for a very long time back into history those who live to the East of them would consider themselves just as Welsh as those who live to the West.  Nowadays we live just to the West.  I see the hills from our sitting room and bedroom, from  my study and from the garden.  I love these hills.  When we turn to begin to come ...